“An Inadvertent Partner to America's Sworn Enemies”

By Mahbubul Karim (Sohel)
October 27, 2004

“A new age of proliferation is just beginning, and George W. Bush is its father.” A new kind of brutal world is emerging, and George W. Bush is its executioner. These are not my words. And these are not election time hyperbole either.

With each blundering aggressions and stubbornness shown by this “God” toting administration, the rest of the world reacts accordingly. Bush’s preventive war doctrine which is softly called as the preemptive war just for making it more palatable, are raising the urgency among the nations around the world to adopt their own preventive / preemptive measures. And what can be more preventive than going nuclear like the big brother already had gone along with other open and covert members of growing nuclear club?

The debates between Kerry and Bush highlighted a few issues that generally do not get much attention in the press. One of them is the issue of North Korea. Bush repeatedly rejected bilateral talks between the United States and the North Korea stating that he preferred the six party talks already in existence. But in reality as James Carroll pointed out in his Boston Globe article, “six-party talks that had, in effect, already collapsed.”

During a joint press conference on October 27, 2004 at Seoul, the South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon was blunt in his assessment of the grave situation in the Korean peninsula while Colin Powell looked on. Ban informed the press (despite the initial attempt of the translator in ignoring his translation duty) that he told Powell that North Korea's neighbors and the United States "must come up with a more creative and realistic proposal so that North Korea can come to the table as soon as possible. North Korea flatly refused coming to the fourth talks regarding its nuclear program, even the parties in this multilateral talk namely “South Korea, China and Russia have been frustrated with the U.S. position”.

What about Iran? What can Iran’s Mullah driven theocracy do when there is that comparable kind of “gathering storm” amassing, just like it did before the starting of Iraq war? Without taking the more sensible steps in improving bilateral relationship with Iran that could have strengthened the hands of the moderates, Bush’s aggressive policy has only infuriated the mass that in effect made the opposition to the “Mullah-o-Cracy” seemed synonymous to supporting the “Great Satan”. Like North Korea, Iran has flatly refused to suspend its uranium enrichment program, even after getting outwardly generous incentive offerings from the European nations, Britain, France and Germany that “offered civilian nuclear technology and a trade deal to the Iranians in a private meeting at the French mission to international organizations in Vienna. But Western diplomats said they doubt the Tehran regime will back down easily.”

And why would they? When “Bush keeps the nuclear future alive by devoting hundreds of millions of dollars - and precious political capital - to develop a new generation of nukes, so-called earth-penetrating nuclear weapons. As Kerry put it, "You talk about mixed messages. We're telling people, `You can't have nuclear weapons,' but we're pursuing a new nuclear weapon that we might even contemplate using."

Bush and his “evangelical” neocon team has so far been successful spreading their fear of ghosts and gremlins among a large segment of American populace by repeating the magical mantra of 911 in almost every other sentence. Would it be possible for Kerry and his team to shed all pretenses and come really level to the American people, eye to eye, not only for political score, and tell them what this war and fear based politics are all about? America needs to know as the most of the world already knows the “TRUTH”, and Kerry can be the messenger.

What could happen if Kerry wins this election? Would that day ever come, however improbable to muse at this juncture of time, when Bush and his closed knit neocons are put into trial along with the despised Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden for their camouflaging, inciting more terror in the name of “crusade” and “jihad”? That would be a good start in achieving the world peace that Bush so eloquently talks about in his stump speeches. World peace could be achieved but not before voting out Bush from his throne, and not before fully realizing that the Bush administration has become an inadvertent (or premeditated) partner to America's sworn enemies. It has, indeed.

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